For the first time, I am disappointed in the prose

[+Wax he/him]

On 3/11/2025 at 5:04 AM, Oltux72 said:

Why? They have centuries of research and reasoning about logic and psychology. They must know the phenomenon of confirmation bias, at least among upper class women.

That term came from a research in 1960s. So, even in the real world it came waaaay after the steam engine. So, just something that looks out of time.

[+Oltux72 he/him]

9 hours ago, Wax said:

That term came from a research in 1960s. So, even in the real world it came waaaay after the steam engine. So, just something that looks out of time.

Well, that makes the implicit assumption that scientific concepts have to be developed in the same order. This is unlikely to be true. For example I am pretty sure that Roshar will have interplanetary travel before they understand plate tectonics. Some discoveries are largely driven by accident. For example the discovery of superconductivity.

[+Wax he/him]

On 4/9/2025 at 4:52 PM, Oltux72 said:

Well, that makes the implicit assumption that scientific concepts have to be developed in the same order. This is unlikely to be true. For example I am pretty sure that Roshar will have interplanetary travel before they understand plate tectonics. Some discoveries are largely driven by accident. For example the discovery of superconductivity.

 Kal is the first psychologist. Yet, confirmation biases are already a term that a non medical scholar would know. So, no, biases wouldn’t be a specified term without proper research. If Jasnah had said something along the lines of “surest person is only fooling himself” or some thing other colloquial observation - it could have fit.
 

All such medical terms in real life have peer reviewed papers and solid tests for evidence.

[+Oltux72 he/him]

11 hours ago, Wax said:

 Kal is the first psychologist.

No, he is not. I am sorry but I have to factually dispute that

• the ardents have a full branch dedicated to the mentally ill and they have theories
• Shallan reads literature on mental illness
• Adolin and Dalinar discuss (putting it politely) the effect of ald age on mental functions

Kaladin is the first therapist. That is different from a general idea about psychology. They clearly have studied mental illness, as they have scholarly articles on it. They just have not had the idea that it can be cured the way Kaladin tries to cure it. That very muchs suggests that they also have studied how the healthy mind works.

[CognitiveShadow he/him]

On 12/14/2024 at 2:22 AM, Oltux72 said:

The old Roshar is dead. The lighteyed lords have fallen. Your dahn is a meaningless vestige of a system that lost. That means its way of speaking has fallen to the sands of time as well.

A world war is bound to change a lot of things, among them the way people speak. We are shown that. Compare prose from 1910 to prose from 1925.

 

Especially when you take into account that the protagonists we are viewing the world through are also being introduced to and influenced by people who are from completely different planets/cultures and who speak completely different languages.... like of course therapist is not a word that Roshar has or knows... but Kaladin learns it from Wit and starts to use it. Same with Lift and 'rust' that she learns from Vasher. 

The cultural pressure cooker that they are in pluse the influence of outside forces is bound to have an impact.

[Master Silver]

Even though the speech patterns are going to change, that doesn't mean the prose need to suffer. Look at how Mark Twain wrote different characters and conversations. I know lots of people hate on Oathbringer, maybe because for many Words of Radiance was the best book in the series, but I do think that it would have been better for Brandon to take a step back and delay it by a year and make this the best book in the series. I love Brandons productivity but for his crown jewel of a book series more time is fine by me. 

[+Oltux72 he/him]

15 hours ago, CognitiveShadow said:

The cultural pressure cooker that they are in pluse the influence of outside forces is bound to have an impact.

Yes,  though that does not mean that the issue can simply be ignored.

If we stay with the concrete example, then Kaladin due to his medical training for sure knows concepts like physical therapy. Hence he must have words for them. That these concepts are also used for mental health is a peculiarity of certain languages. Now Kaladin does not know what "therapist" means. That suggests that what he actually says (presumably he was speaking Alethi with Szeth - does Kaladin know any foreign language?) is not based on the word he uses for ordinary therapy.

What actual word did Hoid use? One of his native language? A Scadrian term? A word from whatever is used in Silverlight?
Now a suggestion I've heard is that he should say "mind healer" or something similar. That makes no sense to me. He would know what that means. In fact most likely there is an Alethi term for those Ardents specialized in aid to the mentally ill. The whole point  of the conversation was avoiding that.

Now. Brandon could have used an invented word. That is problematic, for he would have needed to settle on a language for Hoid to draw such words from and decide what his translation powers do in such cases. That is different from the "rust" example. Alethi must have a word for rust. They just don't use it that way.

Hence I am not sure whether we are actually looking at an issue of style or whether we are looking at a deficiency of world building with respect to language change.

12 hours ago, Master Silver said:

Even though the speech patterns are going to change, that doesn't mean the prose need to suffer.

Certainly true. The question is whether a simple delay for editing woud have fixed that issue. In fact it is not clear to which extent there is an issue.

12 hours ago, Master Silver said:

I know lots of people hate on Oathbringer, maybe because for many Words of Radiance was the best book in the series, but I do think that it would have been better for Brandon to take a step back and delay it by a year and make this the best book in the series. I love Brandons productivity but for his crown jewel of a book series more time is fine by me. 

I personally take Oathbringer as the pinnacle. The last book in a series has always the problem of being the last. You need to give answers. Those are often less liked than interesting questions. And much of this particular book is in a sense retrospective. You could see it as one gigantic infodump with glorious battles for Adolin and Sigzil interspersed.

Hence I cannot agree that simply adding time would have improved the book by enough to justify it. By the same logic you could say that the first half should have been six books.

[Nitpicking]

17 hours ago, Oltux72 said:

Hence I cannot agree that simply adding time would have improved the book by enough to justify it. By the same logic you could say that the first half should have been six books.

It's unpolished and only partly edited, and both RoW and WaT are flabby. I'm not a professional editor, but I confidently say that I could easily cut 15% from both books and improve them tremendously. (Yes, that's arrogant. I stand by it.)

[+Oltux72 he/him]

3 hours ago, Nitpicking said:

It's unpolished and only partly edited

It is possible that Brandon Sanderson is at a level that allows him to ignore editors more easily and this is not good. I'd say that the first part of that statement is obvious and the second is a possibility without conclusive evidence in support.

3 hours ago, Nitpicking said:

but I confidently say that I could easily cut 15% from both books and improve them tremendously. (Yes, that's arrogant. I stand by it.)

You are correct. That is not really contentious. This could be done. Would it make the book better and, more crucial, would it make the series better?

1. How much of what we now call fluff is necessary setup for the back half?
2. Would cutting it make the book better? If you prefer short books, the Stormlight Archive is not ideal for you anyway.

Could I ask that we make up our minds? Is it the quality of the prose? Or is it the amount of prose? Is it both? Mind you I am not saying that you are wrong or that it is both. But we need to make up our mind about what it is.

[therunner he/him]

On 5/1/2025 at 4:25 AM, Nitpicking said:

It's unpolished and only partly edited, and both RoW and WaT are flabby. I'm not a professional editor, but I confidently say that I could easily cut 15% from both books and improve them tremendously. (Yes, that's arrogant. I stand by it.)

Out of curiosity what would you cut? 15% should be roughly 200 pages, so which chapters/parts should go, in both RoW and WaT?

@Oltux72

Quote

Could I ask that we make up our minds? Is it the quality of the prose? Or is it the amount of prose? Is it both? Mind you I am not saying that you are wrong or that it is both. But we need to make up our mind about what it is.

I think to some it is quality of the prose, to some it is the amount, so then 'we' will never make up our minds. Different strokes and all that.

Personally, I think there are some issues with the prose, but for me personally they are minimal, and don't appreciably detract from my enjoyment of the story.

Most importantly, I think some simply don't like the direction the story took. From Oathbringer onward it went in increasingly high-fantasy/science fantasy direction, and clearly some of the fans don't like that. It also coincides with shifting of the language used in the books, which I think was done on purpose to signal this shift both in-world (as Roshar rapidly develops, and culture changes) and out (as tone and focus of the series moves to high fantasy/science fantasy, which was intended from the start).

Edited May 2, 2025 by therunner

[Lord Stormer]

I don't understand how the prose had gone worse when more people have been involved. The Preface credits for Way of Kings was way shorter. If Brandon admitted to have received 100,000+ words worth of alpha/beta feedback, it's really about picking what advices that matter. I always think that Wind and Truth was rushed, when I think we all are willing to wait until next December for the sake of quality.

Increase of lore could be a factor. I wrote notes while reading. The Way of Kings and Words of Radiance are self-contained. More focused on character dynamics, and the worldbuilding are pretty requisite. From Oathbringer onwards there's increase of connections, and by Wind and Truth almost every chapter are crammed with lore details that have the purpose to make reader wondering for the back 5. You need to mention this and that to fulfill your outline, and editing can't be done as smooth and flexibly as general events or character arcs.

Now the problem of prose. I'm talking about atmosphere. The countdown to the Everstorm is a reason why Words of Radiance is so engaging. There are places for levity. I actually tolerated Lift and don't really mind her getting greater role, but I think the Stormlight Archive lost its stern tone when it's needed the most. On the scene where Kaladin proclaims he's the therapist, I felt needed to write like "bad writing, breaks the immersion" on that page.

Can Brandon change? I am convinced. You can feel he's very flexible even if you haven't read him. Rhythm of War has dreadful pacing, which improved in Wind and Truth, though many more problems arise.

I would like to ask you all. Is it likely that a Second Edition for Wind and Truth comes out? With a lot of simple edits, at least. Some lines on Words of Radiance were changed like within a year or two.

[Treamayne]

6 hours ago, therunner said:

I think to some it is quality of the prose, to some it is the amount, so then 'we' will never make up our minds. Different strokes and all that.

Personally, I think there are some issues with the prose, but for me personally they are minimal, and don't appreciably detract from my enjoyment of the story.

My problem is timing. At the risk of hubris, I will quote what I posted in the other language thread (Cosmere Section of Spoiler Zone):

Spoiler

On 12/31/2024 at 8:56 AM, Treamayne said:

My problem with it is not that the use of the [more modern] language exists, it's the timing and implementation. If this change had been in Book 6 - no problem at all - at least 10 years would have passed and language drift is real. If it had happened in RoW, less-of-a-problem as there was a 1 year time skip that might explain the language drift. But to have this much change in WaT when it is the next day after the the end of RoW. . . that is a consistency issue, not a worldbuilding fragment. 

And this is one of those problems, Early on they blame Lift's language on Vasher - but Vasher is from (spoilers - highlight for reading) Nalthis where they swear by the Colors and the Iridescent Tones. He has never been to Scadrial (where they do use this language). If they had blamed Felt (or any other Scadrian Worldhopper) - or even Wit - the explanation might make sense. In this case it feels like an error, not an explanation.

WoB:

  Hide contents

shoeties

Has Vasher ever been to a world other than Nalthis or Roshar, or was this his first time worldhopping?

Brandon Sanderson

Vasher has only been to Roshar and Nalthis, beyond places in Shadesmar.

/r/books AMA 2015 (June 25, 2015)

I don't mind linguistic drift, presented properly. My problem isn't the language, it's the presentation and inconsistent explanations. 

Hope that helps

 

 

Edited May 2, 2025 by Treamayne
SPAG

[Nitpicking]

16 hours ago, therunner said:

Out of curiosity what would you cut? 15% should be roughly 200 pages, so which chapters/parts should go, in both RoW and WaT?

Well, in RoW, I'd eliminate about half of Part One, in which almost nothing happens. In WaT, I'd cut half of the endless Spiritual Realm odyssey. That's just off the top of my head. Oh, and eliminate the weird "beat the minibosses and collect the Honorblades" videogame segment.

On 5/1/2025 at 2:09 AM, Oltux72 said:

It is possible that Brandon Sanderson is at a level that allows him to ignore editors more easily and this is not good. I'd say that the first part of that statement is obvious and the second is a possibility without conclusive evidence in support.

This refers to my statement that it was only partly edited. That was based on Eric (@Chaos), IIRC, saying on Shardcast that the Tor editorial team didn't get a chance to edit it due to deadline pressure. It's a huge book, Tor edits would have delayed publication by as much as a year. (That's my guess, neither Eric or Tor said that.)

[therunner he/him]

19 hours ago, Treamayne said:

My problem is timing. At the risk of hubris, I will quote what I posted in the other language thread (Cosmere Section of Spoiler Zone):

  Reveal hidden contents

 

I can see the point, and it makes sense to leverage the time-skip like that. Though, since the language already was more modern in RoW, could it be that Brandon did the language shift in RoW, because there is a year long gap there?

And simply went further here? Not saying it couldn't be executed better (since it clearly didn't work for some plurality of readers).

8 hours ago, Nitpicking said:

Well, in RoW, I'd eliminate about half of Part One, in which almost nothing happens. In WaT, I'd cut half of the endless Spiritual Realm odyssey. That's just off the top of my head. Oh, and eliminate the weird "beat the minibosses and collect the Honorblades" videogame segment.

Ok, let's take a look.

I'll preface this by saying that I don't necessarily say nothing can be cut, but I don't think people realize how large certain parts of the books actually are.
E.g. when I first read RoW, the Kaladin-Die Hard arc fell awful to me, and in my mind it accounted for huge part of the book. In fact, it is start ~40% through the book, and is only 15 chapters (from when Kaladin kills Singer in clinic, and to when he jumps from roof), and in most of those, Kaladin is not the only PoV. On re-read, it didn't feel nearly as obstructive as on the first read.

RoW: Part One is 19 chapters out of total of 126, so nearly exactly 15%. By eliminating half, you reduce RoW by at most 7.5%.
And I'd dispute that nothing happens in Part One. Part One does heavy lifting in setting up plots for literally the rest of the book:

• Kaladin - his deepening trauma and family conflict + honor of Heavenly Ones + Lezien rivalry + suppressor fabrial
• Shallan - murder of Iatil and Ghostbloods friction + problems with lack of Honorspren willing to bond
• Navani - fabrial progress (also set's up Kaladin's glove) + communication from Sibling  
• Venli - her quiet rebellion + Raboniel + Singer culture

So which of these you would cut? Because frankly, you cannot remove basically anything, without also inserting basically the same content into some other parts.
Easiest to 'cut' might be Venli and her rebellion, but you would still need to move it to her flashbacks, and as such you would either make them longer, or what is currently there would be partially lost.

WaT: 'Endless' Spiritual Realm odyssey appears in ~30 chapters out of 165 (and starts only on Day 4), and for more than half of those chapters, PoV from outside of SR are also present. It on its own accounts for 12-15% of the book. Structurally, it has 4 parts in my opinion

1. Orientation: PoVs get to SR and have to figure out what is what-> This could be shortened, but likely accounts for 3-4% of the book at most, and it cannot be eliminated entirely, so maybe 2% cut?
2. Flashbacks:  Further flesh out background of the conflict, who was aggressor etc. Also reveals cause of False Desolation, and cause of Recreance.
3. Hunt  for Mishran and GB: Shallan hunting Ghostbloods and looking for Mishram -> In my opinion the one that could be cut the most easily. Have Shallan eliminate GB in the attack on their hide out, and then have the environment be the largest danger in SR. Though it would still likely result in at most 3-6% cut.
4. Tanavast:  Provides important context for Shard behavior in the entire series, and gives glimps of limitations and conflicts Shards and Vessels face. Foreshadows Dalinar's choice.
    

You could cut ~5-7% maybe there.

If you eliminate Szeth and Honorblade journey, what would you replace it with? Because you cannot just cut it, and leave Shinovar with nothing in the book. So this isn't editing decision, it is plotting one.

So far, neither of your suggestion would come close to cutting 15% of the books, so I think your confidence might be misplaced.

Finally, all the things you would want to cut and shorten, I liked So these specific cuts wouldn't necessarily result in better book at least to my tastes.

 

Edited May 3, 2025 by therunner

[Nitpicking]

2 hours ago, therunner said:

So far, neither of your suggestion would come close to cutting 15% of the books, so I think your confidence might be misplaced.

Finally, all the things you would want to cut and shorten, I liked So these specific cuts wouldn't necessarily result in better book at least to my tastes.

I wrote in my previous message about how editing one of these monster books would take a year. I didn't claim I could outline all the required changes in a forum message written in less than five minutes. I'm not magic.

I think one of Brandon's weaknesses as a writers is too much setup. Back when he did a podcast, the Writing Excuses crew would talk about "in late, out early." Brandon has not, in my arrogant opinion, mastered "in late". I commend to you a famous quote said to be from William Faulkner.

In general, I'd tighten up those topics you listed, not eliminate them.

Also, Vasher/Zahel fighting Kaladin--that whole chapter is irrelevant, teaches nobody anything, and shouldn't be there. I'm sure Brandon is saving Vasher for Book Nine or something, but I'm not of the mindset that says, "It'll matter in 5000 pages" is justification for taking up space now. Make it relevant or just don't do it.

(The Faulkner quote is the one about killing your darlings.)

[+Oltux72 he/him]

3 hours ago, therunner said:

So far, neither of your suggestion would come close to cutting 15% of the books, so I think your confidence might be misplaced.

• Eliminate the Mink as a character
• Eliminate Fourth Bridge (the airship)
• Eliminate the Gem Inquisitor part
• Eliminate the Rlain/Renarin romance
• Eliminate the loophole subplot
• Let Mraize live - in fact let the Ghostbloods just get away
• Eliminate the Kalak subplot
• Eliminate the Exodus of the Iriali
• Shrink the search for the traitor in Shadesmar
• Eliminate the subplot about Ialai

Note that I didn't say that that would improve the books. I merely said that it can be done.

 

[therunner he/him]

2 hours ago, Nitpicking said:

I wrote in my previous message about how editing one of these monster books would take a year. I didn't claim I could outline all the required changes in a forum message written in less than five minutes. I'm not magic.

You claimed that you can confidently cut 15% and improve the books tremendously. Claims require evidence  

It is easy to claim you can easily improve something, if you don't actually try to do it. As such, vague 'I'd tighten it up' is easy claim to do, that does not really hold much weight.

2 hours ago, Nitpicking said:

I think one of Brandon's weaknesses as a writers is too much setup. Back when he did a podcast, the Writing Excuses crew would talk about "in late, out early." Brandon has not, in my arrogant opinion, mastered "in late". I commend to you a famous quote said to be from William Faulkner.

I disagree, Mistborn Era 1 is good example of him using setup for very good pay off.

If anything, Stormlight suffers of not enough setup soon enough. E.g. TWoK and WoR do comparatively very little of setting things up, and as a result RoW and WaT have to do a lot. I love those books, but spending ~500 pages on Kaladin in Bridge Crews, something that ultimately matters very little for big picture, is not a good idea, from the perspective of entire series.

If Kaladin was the sole protagonist, and not part of ensemble, than it would be more justifiable.

2 hours ago, Nitpicking said:

In general, I'd tighten up those topics you listed, not eliminate them.

And that would net you few percent of the total page count at most.

Again, I am not saying cutting some trim here and there couldn't be done, but not 15% worth.

2 hours ago, Nitpicking said:

Also, Vasher/Zahel fighting Kaladin--that whole chapter is irrelevant, teaches nobody anything, and shouldn't be there. I'm sure Brandon is saving Vasher for Book Nine or something, but I'm not of the mindset that says, "It'll matter in 5000 pages" is justification for taking up space now. Make it relevant or just don't do it.

That chapter is Kaladin's first step in trying to find himself outside of his role as 'Captain Kaladin', so just from character development idea it is not irrelevant.
Second, it introduces some concepts surrounding spren and CR to readers who would not be aware of them otherwise, and will be relevant for Kaladin relatively soon (i.e. end of WaT and onwards).
Third, it emphasizes the point that people form other planets are active on Roshar, so that Ghostbloods being off-world organization does not seem like an a**-pull.

For a single chapter it does a lot.

1 hour ago, Oltux72 said:

• Note that I didn't say that that would improve the books. I merely said that it can be done.

If you don't care about improving the books, you can also simply cut the books. Of course, that is completely pointless argument.
If the cuts don't improve the books, what is the reason for the cuts?

Quote

• Eliminate the Mink as a character

Possibly doable (second half not withstanding), mostly just removes foreshadowing for Dalinar's choice.

Quote

Eliminate Fourth Bridge (the airship)

Why? It loses you fabrial progress (clearly relevant), it loses you Heartstone and as a result Kaladin's character arc in RoW.
And it also makes Kaladin's glove be much more arbitrary.

Quote

Eliminate the Gem Inquisitor part

That is like one and a half chapters, and you would lose Moash as a whole.

Quote

Eliminate the Rlain/Renarin romance

Why? They don't take up particularly large amount of space, again like one or two chapters in total.

Quote

Eliminate the loophole subplot

Which one?
Ultimately it is a discussion for few chapters, and that is it.

And if you eliminate it, there is no reason to fear new Odium, since he is bound just as Rayse was, vastly lowering the pressure on Coalition.

People on these forums wrote more about loophole than was ever in the books.
 

Quote

Let Mraize live - in fact let the Ghostbloods just get away

Bad plotting, Ghostbloods are the main villains in Shallan's plotline and as such should be resolved. Letting Mraize live would be just a bad writing decision.
And then you would have Ghostbloods as a dangling thread for second half, better to wrap it up.

Quote

Eliminate the Kalak subplot

What subplot? The one interlude where he is in WaT? Or those two-three chapters where he is focus on RoW?

Quote

Eliminate the Exodus of the Iriali

That is one interlude.

Quote

Shrink the search for the traitor in Shadesmar

Sure, you could do that.
Though already it takes up just few chapters, before Shallan thinks she figured it out.

Quote

Eliminate the subplot about Ialai

That is again just few chapters, and serves both as a setup for Shallan and removes two dangling plot thread (Sons of Honor and Sadeas camp).

All together, these suggestion would at most remove ~15-20 chapters out of 291, and would cause plot threads to remain open (eventually leading either to plot hole, or to be resolved somehow anyway). Mink is probably the easiest to remove, though that would likely require changes in second half, if his last chapter is any indication.

Edited May 3, 2025 by therunner

[Returned he/him]

I suggest that cuts can work, as a method of simply getting rid of bits that aren't good (per a given reader or editor). But the problems with recent SA books, wherever you may feel those problems began, are not that the books are too long. The problems are about specific sections not working well. They do more than nothing (they're not just fluff and waste) and so if you cut those parts you lose their awkwardness as well as what they actually contribute to the story, and individual tastes will have a lot of influence over how bad the awkwardness is and how valuable the contributions are.

But I submit that rather than cutting those sections being the best cure, improving them would be better still. The care and subtlety of how Kaladin was presented in WoK was really impressive to me: his depression, his despair, his hope, his sense of duty and obligation, his conflicting commitments to medicine and soldiering, his efforts to improve his situation and the challenges he faced along the way, genuine uncertainty over how the plot arc would end in the book-- I thought it was done well and contributed meaningfully to the story. Relevant and artful.

Contrast that with Szeth in WaT: it's a lot more blunt and told-rather-than-shown: the sequential quest through Shinovar doesn't provide many situations to interact with (so Szeth doesn't get much chance to show his characterization) and is largely predictable (I predicted Ishar almost immediately, via process of elimination). Szeth doesn't do much besides fight and arbitrarily eat stew. His character does change and grow but we're mostly just told about those changes rather than seeing them, and the changes don't seem like they have much influence over what Szeth actually does or how events conclude. The plot through that sequence is necessary (we'd lose a lot by cutting it entirely), but I find it to be far less artful than the Kaladin plot from WoK.

There is a lot that could be removed because it contributes little and does so awkwardly, and even if those segments felt a bit light as a result there would be less "badness" to drag the book down while still getting the bare minimum needed to advance the story. But I'd rather keep what the section offers and have it be more carefully done so that it's more like the WoK Kaladin section.

I feel that way about a lot of sections in SA, particularly after RoW. There is plenty of stuff that's worth more than nothing (I like different perspectives on the world for fleshing out the setting and events) but fits so poorly with other sections around them and is clumsy in developing and expressing what it's meant to show that it feels like an annoying delay from the story rather than a supplement to it. Sanderson is a better writer than these sections suggest and I would rather see that than get more plot points cranked out on an arbitrary schedule. Better writing, even if more slowly produced, is what I want. Not less and more quickly.

[Nitpicking]

4 hours ago, therunner said:

You claimed that you can confidently cut 15% and improve the books tremendously. Claims require evidence  

It is easy to claim you can easily improve something, if you don't actually try to do it. As such, vague 'I'd tighten it up' is easy claim to do, that does not really hold much weight.

I disagree, Mistborn Era 1 is good example of him using setup for very good pay off.

If anything, Stormlight suffers of not enough setup soon enough. E.g. TWoK and WoR do comparatively very little of setting things up, and as a result RoW and WaT have to do a lot. I love those books, but spending ~500 pages on Kaladin in Bridge Crews, something that ultimately matters very little for big picture, is not a good idea, from the perspective of entire series.

I think that last line is the essence of our disagreement. I want the individual bookmonsters to work. You're reading a single long story. I'm reading individual books in a series (if I may oversimplify).

I maintain that utterly eliminating Zahel from RoW would change nothing. Aside from maybe a sentence, the entire rest of the book would still work and would in fact be unaffected. Thus: disposable.

[therunner he/him]

14 hours ago, Nitpicking said:

I think that last line is the essence of our disagreement. I want the individual bookmonsters to work. You're reading a single long story. I'm reading individual books in a series (if I may oversimplify).

I must say, that is somewhat confusing perspective to me.

LIke, yes, I want individual books to work, and in my opinion they mostly do. But they are part of a large series, and are intended as part of large overarching narrative, which means they won't be structured like standalone books. So you will get elements of the books that don't make sense if you look at them as standalone books, because they are not.

And this does not affect just RoW or WaT, e.g. TWoK does not work as individual book, Shallan's and Dalinar's stories basically lead to nowhere, and only Kaladin's plot ends in mostly resolved position. From standalone perspective, Shallan at minimum should be cut from TWoK because she does not contribute to the individual novel and is isolated plotline which never connects to the rest. Of course this is a bad idea from series perspective.

14 hours ago, Nitpicking said:

I maintain that utterly eliminating Zahel from RoW would change nothing. Aside from maybe a sentence, the entire rest of the book would still work and would in fact be unaffected. Thus: disposable.

And I think you are wrong. Even if RoW was standalone (which it isn't), Zahel chapter serves Kaladin's plotline in that book. It is his first attempt to find life outside of fighting, but he still does not want to give it up completely. Zahel serves to further push him away from that life, and towards healing.

If you remove that chapter, you either have to replace it with something that does structurally the same, or Kaladin immediately after being forbidden to fight switches to being a surgeon without any internal conflict about it.

 

Edited May 4, 2025 by therunner

[Master Silver]

I'd agree that there is bloat. I think we all would say that. Part of the disappointment is that some of the pay offs just weren't really there. Ascending to Honor seemed seamed not to have the payoff we wanted. Same thing with swearing the fifth ideal. We were looking for Tal to fight (it happened off screen and no reason was given why he didn't use his honor blade or what happened to it). The contest of champions, again seemed like a ploy. Oathbringer being Gav's weapon, again it didn't seem well done. We thought the payoff with Maya would be bigger and more unique to Adolin seems like an opportunity lost. Mink character arc had no point since the Radiants lost so hard. Ghost Bloods should have been slaughtered and scattered. Mraize let go and then run into Shallan in postlude. Spiritual realm flashbacks shorter and in a choppy style so it is more of a vision/flashback. In terms of Romance/relationships cut some of them out, doing way too much there. If stormlight is meant to be an epic, make it an epic.

[+Oltux72 he/him]

On 5/3/2025 at 2:13 PM, therunner said:

If you don't care about improving the books, you can also simply cut the books. Of course, that is completely pointless argument.
If the cuts don't improve the books, what is the reason for the cuts?

First of all I do care about improvements. I am unsure of the methods. That is a small but crucial difference.

Second, if you are unsure about how to improve, options have to be looked at. Hence if you are looking at the option of streamlining you will have to suggest plot threads to eliminate, because taking details out of all plot lines is unlikely to work well.

On 5/3/2025 at 2:13 PM, therunner said:

Why? It loses you fabrial progress (clearly relevant), it loses you Heartstone and as a result Kaladin's character arc in RoW.

Kill Taft earlier. Options exist.

On 5/3/2025 at 2:13 PM, therunner said:

Bad plotting, Ghostbloods are the main villains in Shallan's plotline and as such should be resolved. Letting Mraize live would be just a bad writing decision.
And then you would have Ghostbloods as a dangling thread for second half, better to wrap it up.

You do have the Ghostbloods as a dangling thread. Killing Iyatil has crossed a threshold. If you wanted closure on the Ghostbloods, you'd have to include a peace settlement with them. Thaidakar is not going away or going to die from old age.

On 5/3/2025 at 7:05 PM, Returned said:

But I submit that rather than cutting those sections being the best cure, improving them would be better still. The care and subtlety of how Kaladin was presented in WoK was really impressive to me: his depression, his despair, his hope, his sense of duty and obligation, his conflicting commitments to medicine and soldiering, his efforts to improve his situation and the challenges he faced along the way, genuine uncertainty over how the plot arc would end in the book-- I thought it was done well and contributed meaningfully to the story. Relevant and artful.

Contrast that with Szeth in WaT: it's a lot more blunt and told-rather-than-shown: the sequential quest through Shinovar doesn't provide many situations to interact with (so Szeth doesn't get much chance to show his characterization) and is largely predictable (I predicted Ishar almost immediately, via process of elimination). Szeth doesn't do much besides fight and arbitrarily eat stew. His character does change and grow but we're mostly just told about those changes rather than seeing them, and the changes don't seem like they have much influence over what Szeth actually does or how events conclude. The plot through that sequence is necessary (we'd lose a lot by cutting it entirely), but I find it to be far less artful than the Kaladin plot from WoK.

OK, somebody has to say it. The road is correct, but we are walking it in the wrong direction. I am going to say it outright:

The last two books of the Stormlight Archive are worse not because they contain too much fluff, but because they are crammed. They resorted to telling instead of showing because telling is shorter. These two books should have been three books.

On 5/3/2025 at 7:13 PM, Nitpicking said:

I maintain that utterly eliminating Zahel from RoW would change nothing. Aside from maybe a sentence, the entire rest of the book would still work and would in fact be unaffected. Thus: disposable.

I suspect you need some way to get a limted form of Surgebinding working in the back half. Having one of the Five Scholars in Urithiru makes that plausible through technological innovation.

[Nitpicking]

@Oltux72, to clarify, I meant that removing Zahel wouldn't change WaT. I am sure Zahel is important in 3,000 pages or whatever, but I don't care. This book is weak because far too much of it was at best laying foundations for books i am almost certainly not going to read.

(I'm 63. By the time the Back Half starts I'll be in my seventies, again at best. By the time it ends I'll almost certainly be dead. Even if I don't have dementia by 2035 or 2040 or whenever the SA resumes, I might not bother starting it.)

[Returned he/him]

12 hours ago, Oltux72 said:

OK, somebody has to say it. The road is correct, but we are walking it in the wrong direction. I am going to say it outright:

The last two books of the Stormlight Archive are worse not because they contain too much fluff, but because they are crammed. They resorted to telling instead of showing because telling is shorter. These two books should have been three books.

I agree, with a slight caveat. The books could have been longer and been fine (or better, or worse). While there is a telling-not-showing problem there is also a problem with available capacity and how it's used. There is a lot that is set up and does not pay off within a specific book, which consumes capacity (pages, plot density, there are a lot of ways to think about it) but feels outside of the actual story. If the setups never pay off then it was a total waste-- fluff. If they do pay off it may or may not have been worth the inclusion (depending on the payoff itself).

Taking more time and care to establish and develop the setups (like Vasher is suggested upthread to have been) wouldn't feel crammed, it would feel artful and interesting, though perhaps long. It's forcing the setups into the books but not weaving them in with the narrative, plot, or events very well that makes them stand out.

I like to think about Hoid in WoK and WoR for this: he's there, it's nearly all setup when he is, and the payoffs don't come until later books. But he isn't there too often, and when he is it is (usually) in the context of a scene that has other relevance to the main story. That is to say, the scene in which these interactions take place aren't only about the setup being established-- it's the King's Feast (so Dalinar and Hoid both have a reason to be there), and there are plot-relevant political maneuvers which play out during the scene (so it's not just about Dalinar's conversation with Hoid), and the scene matters to the story and the book it's in rather than only serving some book that hasn't even been written yet. Vasher is like that too in WoK and RoW, but later... his scenes are more 1:1 conversations with nothing else happening and so they could be lifted from the books in which they take place without much consequence. That also makes the setups feel more like exposition info-dumps than parts of the story.

I don't think that there is enough plot for RoW and WaT to become three books. WaT especially struggled to fill its pages, though its structure may have been responsible for a lot of that. Without enough plot for scenes, events, and character interactions to connect to we can't fix this problem no matter how long or short the book is. Plotlines only have so many spots for characters to reasonably connect to, it takes time and craft to make those connections, and too many plots that don't interact with each other (or at least, not sensibly or plausibly) causes many of the same issues. If the only reason Kaladin and Vasher are having a conversation in book A is to set up some event in book G, that's problematic.

Even if the payoffs are ultimately worth it, that doesn't help the awkwardness of the blunt setup in the earlier books. The events in a book need to serve that book in some way. A lot of stuff in recent Cosmere works seems to be there only to make it obvious that there is an explicit connection to some other work. We go through one book at a time, not the Cosmere extended universe in its entirety, and I think that some of that has been lost lately. It's great and important to be aware of the forest, but we experience it tree by tree.

[therunner he/him]

23 hours ago, Oltux72 said:

First of all I do care about improvements. I am unsure of the methods. That is a small but crucial difference.

Second, if you are unsure about how to improve, options have to be looked at. Hence if you are looking at the option of streamlining you will have to suggest plot threads to eliminate, because taking details out of all plot lines is unlikely to work well.

After your list of proposals you said this

On 5/3/2025 at 1:11 PM, Oltux72 said:

Note that I didn't say that that would improve the books. I merely said that it can be done.

that is what I was reacting to.

Quote

Kill Taft earlier. Options exist.

That has nothing to do with Fourth Bridge, so I don't know why you mention it.

23 hours ago, Oltux72 said:

You do have the Ghostbloods as a dangling thread. Killing Iyatil has crossed a threshold. If you wanted closure on the Ghostbloods, you'd have to include a peace settlement with them. Thaidakar is not going away or going to die from old age.

That is basically what Shallan does at the end of WaT. All on Roshar presence is eliminated, no new Ghostbloods can arrive, and Shallan and Thaidakar have sort of cease fire.

Leaving Mraize and their leadership alive leaves them in far more unresolved position and leaves Shallan's plotline unresolved.

Quote

OK, somebody has to say it. The road is correct, but we are walking it in the wrong direction. I am going to say it outright:

The last two books of the Stormlight Archive are worse not because they contain too much fluff, but because they are crammed. They resorted to telling instead of showing because telling is shorter. These two books should have been three books.

I actually agree with this. It should have been three books, or alternatively if ten books are absolute limit, first two books should have been more focused.

• Condense a bit TWoK, and move in what was the start of WoR into it, to deal with fallout of Battle of Tower directly in the book.
• WoR, after moving parts into TWoK, add in early exploration of Urithiru and Kaladin's trip to Heartstone into it, again deal with fallout of Battle of Narak directly in the book.
• Oathbringer, have arc 1 of RoW happen as an epilogue, but set it maybe 6 months later, not full year.
• RoW, move the realization that Odium has new Vessel here, including the realization of loophole, and setup SR arc for WaT.
• WaT, use the created space to flesh it out a bit, possibly choose to lose non-key Interludes (save those for anthology that could be published in the break between books 5 and 6).

Personally, I think 3 books would be the better option though.